Revisiting the studies on art history by Jurgis Baltrušaitis

LTThe distinguished Lithuanian art historian and cultural scholar Jurgis Baltrušaitis (1903–1988), having spent most of his life in France, worked on a great variety of research topics. His interests ranged from the morphology of Romanesque sculpture to anamorphoses, from Southern Caucasus art to various peregrinations of art motifs from East to West, from fantastic images in medieval culture to aberrations and depravations of vision, and much more. Today, Baltrušaitis’s name is primarily associated with the studies of the fantastic in the Middle Ages, anamorphoses, and aberrations. His books have attracted the attention of scholars and artists from various fields. However, it must be admitted that despite his popularity, Baltrušaitis occupies a modest place in the annals of art history. It may be because for many years he was an independent art historian, unaffiliated with any institution. He was regarded in France mainly as an original representative of the Henri Focillon’s school. In Lithuania his books, written in French, were not officially available during the Soviet occupation, and are not yet sufficiently appreciated. Moreover, his eminence here is overshadowed by the creative legacy of his father, the symbolist poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis (1873–1944).